Broken Self-Reflection - Brushstrokes
by Late to the Party
Summary: Journeys aren't always easy, especially for those who have had their mind broken, their soul stolen (and reclaimed), and their friends slain. Everything takes a toll. Sometimes a little bit of self-reflection is necessary if one is to find the strength to push forwards. If one is still able to push forwards... (Cross-posted from AO3).
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**A/N: cross-posted from Ao3. While I usually prefer not to cross-post things, I'm making an exception with this particular gift-piece. Hope you all enjoy it! -LttP.  
PS: Dear readers, I'm aware that I've a couple of unfinished fics that still require finishing - I haven't forgotten. Life has just got crazy busy as of late, so if you're waiting, I appreciate your patience. One day, someday, soon, I hope! Would love to hear from you in the meantime :).  
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1.

_Valygar's dead._

Somehow the words didn't do it justice. Another name written in the journal – a journal that was swiftly becoming a toll of the dead. The journal had never been belles-lettres, but somehow as the dead mounted, so had its bloodstained pages, both literally and metaphorically.

Imoen had perished in Spellhold, driven mad by the loss of her soul. Unlike Sarevok, she wasn't strong enough to claw her way back to the realm of the living or perhaps she was too tired. For all her grit, determination and flair for theatrics, she was only mortal. Valygar had loved that about her, but not as much as Viconia. The crossbow bolts of her kin punctured the brooding ranger's chest with pinpoint accuracy, a thing that Sarevok could have stopped, but Sarevok fully committed to the bloodlust had trusted – or abandoned – everyone to take care of themselves while he cleaved the drow kensai in twain.

Now as Alixana squatted in the fading golden dust that was her half-sibling Sendai of all but a few moments ago, she took the opportunity to reflect and add a name to the ledger. How long would it be until Viconia either killed Sarevok or took him as her lover?


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2.

The pocket plane was an unwelcome sight. Not as dank as Sendai's enclave, it somehow pulsated with a darkness that reverberated throughout her soul, a soul that she had torn out of Irenicus after he had ripped it from her. As souls went, it was more than a little frayed at the edges, and it was beginning to show. Even the shadow of the Slayer kept its distance from her, as if the avatar of Bhaal himself was somehow wary of pushing her too far.

It was something that neither the Solar nor the imp Cespenar shared. After reading off what amounted to another lecture – as if Alixana was somehow back in Candlekeep – the Solar vanished, leaving her with another chamber to explore. The pocket plane was full of nooks and crannies, chambers of 'testing', as if the real battle wasn't bad enough. One glance at her companions was all the confirmation she needed: further attempts to delve into her still-tapped power was not only expected but demanded. Grief, red and raw, bit Viconia's eyes, but her mouth oozed silent venom, as though her teeth were a portcullis, her lips a gateway. Nearby, Sarevok simply shrugged without moving. How many had he seen come and go? How many had she herself seen fall?

Viconia prepared the rites upon Valygar's body, the warmth all but gone. Alixana knew better than to suggest raising him: resurrection always carried a terrible cost. It cost Sarevok his claim to divinity, and for a demi-god, there were few things worse than being stripped of one's nature: she should know. For Valygar… what would he return as? A shadow of himself, wracked and wretched?

Jaheira, for all her nagging, had been right not to raise Khalid. After the great blade of Minsc had shattered against the Yuan-ti in Nalia's keep, a claw tore out the giant man's throat and Alixana had demanded Jaheira return him… a revenant clawed its way out of Minsc's flesh, a skeletal abomination bound in strips of… she didn't want to think of it. The druid's fire had returned Minsc's wraith to dust, and after that, Alixana swore 'never again'. But 'never' was too soon as she found Sarevok awaiting her after she tore her soul back from Irenicus.


	3. 3

3.

Suldanessellar was the turning point, the point where Alixana was forced to concede the unthinkable: Sarevok was right. As the elves she saved drove her out of their precious woodland city, their cold hostility and glares, and then the poison that slew Jaheira, it was time to go. Jaheira despised Sarevok, considered it a betrayal, but she wasn't one to take her own life, and Sarevok had scoffed at the use of such a weapon. His tools – despite his hired knives – were his fist, crushing and choking the life out of those he saw as worthy enough to engage with personally.

Valygar was quieter, broodier, than usual at this turn of events. He and Jaheira had something of an understanding, but over the course of the next month, he and Sarevok reached a mutual respect. Perhaps it might have been better had they not, Alixana sighed inwardly. Privately, she had the smallest crush on the dark ranger, dark in mood, with skin like oiled walnuts, and eyes of deep, deep brown. It could never be though. For all their similarities, Valygar despised and feared magic with a loathing that she once held for Sarevok.

But Sarevok proved his worth over and over. He filled in the gaps in her knowledge, gaps that Gorion had so carefully edited and removed from her education. She knew how to strike a wyrm thanks to Sarevok, knew how to skin it thanks to Valygar. The magic Gorion taught her was pathetic parlour tricks.

It was Imoen who allowed Viconia to crush Sarevok's hand beneath her terrible mace, Khalid who had slain Tazok, and Imoen who had hamstrung Angelo. Jaheira had pinned Sarevok's left with her club, and it was her, Alixana, who dealt the blow that should have finished Sarevok the first time… but Imoen got there first. Her blade stuck him through the back of the throat, Alixana the decoy, her magics useless against Sarevok's black armour. Like so much else in life, Alixana was utterly and woefully unprepared for all she faced.

For the longest time, it was Imoen who was the strong one. But Imoen wasn't long enough.

And now? Now it was Viconia's strength, Sarevok's will, that pushed her forwards, propelling her towards whatever fate the Solar knew but wouldn't share.


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4.

Facing her own dark doppelgänger was no challenge at all. Alixana had spent too many hours in self-reflection for the question of whether an immortal could hold innocence to be of use. A single eyebrow at Sarevok had seen his reforged zweihander, the so-called 'Sword of Chaos' slice through her doppelgänger. They all knew the truth. Even if she had been raised in Sarevok's stead, she would not have survived, not if she was her. She didn't have the same drive, the same ambition; even Imoen doubted her hunger for revenge.

The truth was, Alixana enjoyed spas, soaking in warm water, with mud on her face while someone other than Eldoth recited poetry. Valygar's singing voice was like a dream, a dream that now haunted her. It was her own fault, of course. She should have known that Sarevok would do as Sarevok did. If only she was a little faster with dispatching those two drow on the left, then Viconia wouldn't have had to have stepped in…

Perhaps Viconia hated her, considered her weak. If it wasn't for her reasoning with that Flaming Fist bigot… right before Jaheira cracked him over the back of the head, Viconia would be dead. They left the man for the wolves, stripping away his armour. The dead voice of Bhaal taunted her for that, claiming she was too weak to finish the man herself.

After Sarevok, Viconia stepped out and that's when the ambush happened. Minsc insisted on accompanying her. The vampires must have feared her goddess' might, but it was over in a moment. Jaheira was overwhelmed, Khalid's arms snapped like twigs. The potions did the rest, potions that neither Alixana or Imoen saw coming… Viconia tracked them all the way from Baldur's Gate to Athkatla. When Imoen finally got free of Irenicus' cage, only Alixana and Jaheira were alive, barely. Then Imoen was taken… and by the time they found Viconia, the pyre was about to go up in flame. The citizens of Athkatla were of the same mindset of the bigoted Flaming Fist. Somehow, Alixana was able to free the drow priestess while Jaheira faced down the mob with just a stave.

After that, they quit the city, taking a job from some brat noble who claimed her home was overrun. They found Minsc had already journeyed ahead of them… that reunion was short-lived.


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5.

Valygar was a man that Alixana could never quite gauge, a man that intrigued Viconia. They found him on a path waiting for them, having watched them for several days, a thing Jaheira neglected to announce her knowledge of to him. Alixana couldn't fathom his reasons for enlisting, but she accepted Jaheira's words in allowing him to venture with them. He saved their lives three times before the tenday was out and his blade pierced Yoshimo's heart in Spellhold a few days later. He was there when they found Imoen, what was left of her, was there when Imoen perished.

His blade was the one to severe the foul head of Bodhi, and his hand steadied hers as she drove the stake into the vampire's slumbering form. It was her magic that set the chamber ablaze, but under Valygar's strength, his calm, formless gaze of forest brown, his guidance, she struck down the vampires over and over until the hour she torched their nest. It was because of him they survived the numerous ambushes. Jaheira helped, but ever since Khalid's death, something had shifted in the druid; her connection to nature had waned, as if she was only half alive. Viconia walked in shadow and night, bringing her goddess' fury against all those who strove to live in the light, and Valygar was a man more at ease in the shadows of the forest than the sunlight that baked the city.

As for Alixana herself, she longed for the day it would end. Imoen's loss left her reeling even more than Khalid's had; by the time Sarevok made his appearance in the hells, her grief had reached the point where her need for revenge had buckled. The 'hells', her pocket plane, the place where she fought Irenicus, where she encountered the first set of trials… and after Irenicus, the trials reformed. But Sarevok? Sarevok remained consistent. In the hells, he seemed larger than life, stronger, the very image of everything Bhaal's dead voice promised she, Alixana, should be, could be. When she saw him, she shoved him, her hands striking against his metal breastplate, palms, then fists beating. The slayer took over, and Sarevok caught the monstrosity's gnarly arms, slowly sliding as she thrust with all she had. Before her massive jaw could clamp down on his head, the vision was gone. Perhaps that really was Sarevok, perhaps it was her imagination, but Irenicus appeared seconds later and the rest was a red haze. No speeches, nothing, just unadulterated bloodlust. 'Daddy' would have been proud, Imoen might have quipped… but Imoen was dead.

When everything cooled, Irenicus was no more and they were back in the elven tree city, but something in Alixana had shifted. With Irenicus' demise, the pocket plane reformed and with it, she felt Sarevok's presence. When he greeted her, after the Solar called them to the pocket plane, Valygar's blade breaking in Ilasera's thorax, Alixana simply nodded. Their trek back to Suldanessellar was one of silence, one where she wished she'd said something. Not two days after, Jaheira was dead.


	6. 6

6.

Alixana scanned the pocket plane. Viconia on her right, Sarevok a half step in front of her left. Was there really no one else she call upon? Lifting her hands to her allies' shoulders, Alixana felt strong muscle rippling beneath smooth skin, each familiar in their own way. Viconia's was as silk; Sarevok possessed the build of an athletic half orc without a drop of orcish blood, and Alixana felt her head droop. Through the portal another foe awaited. Sarevok stood ready, the Sword of Chaos easy in one hand, Viconia with the mace made from the reforged Varscona, a sword that broke against the Sword of Chaos, wielded by Khalid back in the Gate. Perhaps it was fitting that so many of their tools were forged anew, for Sarevok commented how battle had forged them all into worthy foes.

How long would it be before Viconia tired of her, before Sarevok betrayed her? But they were all she had left. What would it be like to be held by a lover who actually understood? Sometimes she daydreamed about someone, anyone. Before Irenicus, she daydreamed about paladins, about being whisked away, only to be murdered in her sleep, for the righteous sword to spear down, skewering her into golden dust. But since Irenicus… with that pale blue, a gaze that made her feel less than nothing, not even a child, not even worth touching – not even contempt… she understood the truth. Irenicus hadn't needed to assert himself because she was already powerless before him and she knew it. They both did. Her petty magics were nothing. Even when she faced Cythandria, Sarevok's lover, her own middling attempts were utterly pathetic. It was a miracle she made it this far, and truly, it was only on the backs of others, others who had paid with their lives. She was a coward, too shy, too grief-stricken to share her feelings, to even approach a boy she liked. Her time in Uth Nasta had opened her eyes, but it wasn't her that Phaere assumed led, it was Viconia, and why not? Viconia hadn't treated her exactly like a slave, and not exactly like a younger sister, but Alixana had noted how easily she had taken to the role of mewling underling, playing the part of 'baby sister' to perfection. It was so natural, so convincing that some of that had never left, and there had been a shift in Viconia ever since.

With Jaheira's death, it was Viconia who offered 'counsel' in no uncertain terms, overcoming Alixana's hesitation, warning her about weakness. Valygar hadn't been gentler despite his soft voice. Surprisingly, it was Sarevok who drew her aside and shared the knowledge of what it was to carry such a burden, that no one else but one of the Children could know. That had brought her to tears, and for the first time since Gorion, the floodgates had burst. Alixana didn't know how long she wept, how she screamed, sobbed her heart out, how Sarevok simply stood, statue-still, not even wincing as her nails bit into his arm drawing deep rivulets of blood, blood that splashed down against the pocket plane floor. The weight of it brought Alixana to her knees, even as Sarevok towered over her, capable of crushing her throat. He was even taller than Minsc, and somehow, far more noble. Without the wild light of madness in his golden eyes, there was a sense of greatness about him, a quality that even Valygar's tragic nobility lacked; Sarevok was regal.

When Alixana pulled herself up, the warrior simply nodded, and that was when her true training began. Sarevok instructed her as his protégé, teaching her the arts of the deathbringer. But even with his instruction, with Valygar teaching her how to walk in the forests' shadows, with Viconia filling her mind with the same attitude as Phaere, as if she truly was a younger sister of the same house, her grief did not subside.

Valygar's death changed all that. Weariness replaced grief, despair displaced by apathy. Almost carelessly, her mouth brushed first Viconia's, then Sarevok's cheek, her hands finding their gauntleted hands, and she stepped forward.


End file.
